I agree. It is far more reasonable not to believe, than to believe.
There seems to be a tendency to see attitudes of belief as lying on a symmetrical spectrum with absolute theism at one end, absolute atheism at the other, and various stages of agnosticism lying in the neutral and rational middle. I do not believe this. I believe the line of dilineation between the rational and irrational is at the border of atheism. I used the word “craven” and “coward” to describe agnostics. I have also described agnosticism as “wishy-washy” as Mr. Adams has done. But “wishy-washy” is just a nice way of describing a person who is *afraid * of making a commitment one way or the other.
Agnosticism is merely a state of confusion, of indecision. If you believe that magic explanations are possible, then go all the way. Believe. And if you can’t accept magical feel-good catch-all self-fulfilling explanations for the happenings of nature then forget about Big-Daddy-in-the-Sky. Make a decision and stop mucking up the matter for everybody else.
Athiesm is a belief just as belief in god is a belief. This is because there is no logical way to disprove god. Think, for example, of a god that exists outside the universe, and is made up of energy we cannot detect. He simply created the universe as we know it at the start, and then left it alone to develop however it chose. From thence, the big bang, evolution, etc. happened. This sort of god cannot be disproven. But logically and mathematically, if you cannot disprove one type of god, you cannot disprove gods in general. You can disprove certain gods, but not gods in general.
Agnosticism admits that god cannot be disproven, but expresses doubt as to his existence. My beliefs tend to lean to the more athiestic. In discussion and conversation, I tend to say god does not exist, and base all my assumptions off that. but if I were truly logical about it Agnosticism is the only way to go.
Disbelief in Santa Claus is a belief just as belief in Santa is a belief? So logically “not knowing” is the way to go?
Agnostics eventually do the same thing. Their definition of a possible god drifts toward an impersonal life force which creates a world then turns it loose to fare on its own. This is merely resorting to deism, which is merely a form of wishy-washy agnosticism. It conveniently avoids the question of a personal god which is the subject of the discussion. Eventually the “god” imagined has no discernable consciousness whatsoever, which equates to ‘no god.’
Agnosticism is theoretical sophistry which is alien to real life, real belief, and mountains of real evidence.
I don’t think it’s that simple, Ex (may I call you “Ex”?) I think believers are made, not born. Unfortunately, they are made before they have the ability to make choices for themselves. In my own case, from before earliest memory I was told by all the big people around me that there was a god. This god, they said, was revealed in a book they called the Holy Bible. I was steeped in their belief before I was able to exercise my own critical judgment. As a result, by the time I was old enough to look into it for myself and reject it there remained the subconscious seed planted in babyhood and nurtured until I was independent.
Thence the conflict you and others have pointed out that caused me to call myself “agnostic.”
I know it can’t be proved that there is a god. I also know it can’t be disproved. On that basis, I say “I don’t know.” But I do reject any notion of a god that I’ve ever seen. Given that, in my culture at least, I may face ultimate torture if my infantile “authorities” prove to be right, I hardly think it craven to avow that I reject god. The term “agnostic” only serves to soften the shock to others (or maybe not).
First of all, which? The question of a personal god is the subject of which discussion? I mean, this thread wasn’t started to be the discussion of what Ex Machina thinks is acceptable in terms of belief in a god. You showed up and started attacking the agnostic’s point of view. If all you’re trying to do is win an argument on your own grounds, (and it looks like, for pages and pages, you’ve been trying to do so) then we’re not going anywhere here- a conclusion which I had previously reached anyway.
If the god imagined has no knowable consciousness, as you say, only by your definition is that unacceptable. Maybe somebody created the universe just like this, and didn’t leave instructions, and when we die we just die. That’s still a god, and it seems an alright possibility to me. Maybe there’s no god at all. I just don’t know. Maybe I’ll find out when I die. Only if you’ve created a specific range of values- this kind of god is acceptable to believe in, and if you don’t believe in that kind with all your heart, you don’t believe in anything- does agnosticism become the evil you imagine it to be. When I say I don’t believe or disbelieve in a god, I don’t mean the Christian God- the one you have to pray to and ask forgiveness of to get into the afterlife. I mean that I don’t know how this universe came to be, and it seems just as likely that something created it out of divine power as it is that there was a big explosion. Either way, there’s a great deal I don’t understand. But I don’t know, I’m not gonna, and I refuse to pretend to discount something because you say it’s not rational.
I was implanted with the same seed. But because I was born a non-believer the sapling withered and died in the light of logic and reason. I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and in that tradition we had “exorcists.” These rare priests were trained to rid people of the infestation of evil spirits. We atheists have “extirpists”. These are people trained to uproot those ridiculous ideas which cling to your soul like a fearful vine. But if the “extirpist” decides that the belief is too firmly rooted he will suggest that you water and nurture it instead of fretting over its poor development.
The thread was started as a discussion of whether or not belief is a choice or a result of innate tendencies. Since the best known suggestion that belief is a choice is Pascal’s Wager I addressed that immediately. (Still on subject I presume?) And since my assertion is that a person can only have the innate character of a believer or a non-believer then I have to show that there is not a rational ground from which the choice between the two can be made.
(I have skipped the idea that people can be born agnostics because it also implies an eventual possibility of choice which I reject.)
But a real agnostic is a “non-believer”. He is just honest enough to admit that a lack of evidence does not make something true or false, only unbelievable. He is more secure than you are and has no need to state as fact, something that is only opinion.
That makes him an atheist.
To repeat: an atheist is someone who rejects God. It doesn’t matter whether that belief is exhibited as fact or just a personal conclusion.
Everyone is agnostic. Atheism and agnosticism aren’t multually exclusive. The former deals with belief, the latter with knowledge.